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First of all, sorry if this is the wrong board for this. It just seemed appropriate since this seems like a pretty noob-ish question.

Second, I also apologize for being so vague here, I just get the strong sense that I shouldn't give any specifics.

Anyway...

Recently, I've been working with two deities on a problem I have. I got the strong feeling that they would help me accomplish my goal, but I wasn't sure. I asked for a very specific sign from one, and got exactly what I asked for within the hour. I asked for another specific sign from the second, and got exactly what I asked for within a day. I took that to mean that they would help me.

A few days later, things hadn't changed, so I took a more active role in solving the problem (metaphysically speaking, since it's not something I can do anything about otherwise). That same day, I saw two animals while on a walk. One was strongly connected to one of the deities I'm working with, and the other is a form that the other deity is said to take. Both are fairly rare where I live, and both were behaving very differently from how they usually do. I took that to mean that they would strengthen the actions I took and answer my call.

I got a strong feeling that I should go over to where one of the animals was, and I found an object. I looked up the significance of the object, and everything I found related exactly to my problem and basically said that the problem would be solved.

It's been almost a week since then, and nothing has changed.

So, my question is... Does anyone have any experience with anything like this? I don't know if I'm going crazy and these are all just weird coincidences, or if I'm just being impatient.

I've never gotten signs this clear before, but the situation hasn't changed in the slightest, so I'm just not sure.

So, my question is... Does anyone have any experience with anything like this?

Yup.

A year ago almost to the day, I received a message from my primary god that if we could together produce an astronomically unlikely sign within the next half hour, he would be able to punch through the magical defenses of my main enemy at the time and save me. Thirty seconds before the half hour was up, I received the sign.

It took about a month and a half for the main source of my problems, the particular one my god had been targeting, to clear up. It took another few weeks after that for things to really improve. During that time, I continued working as much magic as I could.

So, yeah, sometimes it does take a while. But it sounds like what you're doing so far is working.

When you explained to your Powers about the situation and the help you need, and asked for the signs, did you specify any time frame for the help?

If not, why?

Do you need the help immediately? Or is this a situation that could go on for a little while before going critical?

If you really need a schedule you could always ask for a second set of signs, but find a way to include the schedule element this time.

It feels like it's been critical for about a month now, but I can't say for certain.

In this situation specifically, I've "prayed" for things to be resolved within a certain timeframe, but it hasn't happened. I didn't give a timeframe when I actually sat down to do my work because I was afraid it would be the same case. Should I try again, but set one?

I want to ask when this will be resolved, but I'm not sure how such a specific question could be answered. The signs I've seen have just been to a "yes or no" question, so I'm not sure what to look for when asking something that exact.

It feels like it's been critical for about a month now, but I can't say for certain.

In this situation specifically, I've "prayed" for things to be resolved within a certain timeframe, but it hasn't happened. I didn't give a timeframe when I actually sat down to do my work because I was afraid it would be the same case. Should I try again, but set one?

I want to ask when this will be resolved, but I'm not sure how such a specific question could be answered. The signs I've seen have just been to a "yes or no" question, so I'm not sure what to look for when asking something that exact.

It could be still done as a yes or no---you already have an answer of "Yes" for "Will it be...?", so now you just ask "Will it be within X (number of days)?". For what it's worth, I recently had a thing I was going through that sounded similar, and things arguably seemed to be getting worse in the real world, which made me question in the same way, and I finally got a message of "I know this looks bad, but please trust me just a little longer". I did and there has now been a major movement within the situation, but it took over three months.

Without knowing your exact circumstances, I obviously can't say---certainly, some people do convince themselves of things that aren't good for them. But also what seems really slow to us when we're in a bad place may be the pace actually needed to resolve the situation properly.

The wait and the uncertainty is killing me, but I think I just have to trust that I'm taking the right steps and keep moving forward despite that.

It sounds like that's the case.

If you think it would help, you might also want to do some divination on the subject of "is there anything else I should be doing?"

I've been reading Jason Miller's writings on magic lately, and one thing he recommends is both macro-enchantments (large, broad works of magic aimed at producing sweeping results) and micro-enchantments (smaller spells aimed at creating secondary effects that will help with the main goal). You could consider your prayers, and the work your gods are doing, to be the macro-enchantment, and see if there's anything smaller you can do with your own personal power.

I've been reading Jason Miller's writings on magic lately, and one thing he recommends is both macro-enchantments (large, broad works of magic aimed at producing sweeping results) and micro-enchantments (smaller spells aimed at creating secondary effects that will help with the main goal). You could consider your prayers, and the work your gods are doing, to be the macro-enchantment, and see if there's anything smaller you can do with your own personal power.

I've never gotten signs this clear before, but the situation hasn't changed in the slightest, so I'm just not sure.

Great advice on this thread - I wanted to comment on the timing issue.

My life experience is that there are relatively few big-deal problems where a solution has even a small potential of just appearing, falling in your lap, and making everything better very quickly. That's just not how big-deal problems work. Often there are a lot of moving pieces, or people who need to come to decisions in their own time, or different aspects that take time to line up. (And just as often, the big-deal problem is a big deal because things have been getting slowly worse for a while, so it also makes sense it'll take time to fix.)

(I mean, yes, if you play the lottery, you could theoretically win it, and large sums of money do solve some problems (while creating others). But we can all agree that's probably a really small potential chance in any given instance even if you play the lottery in the first place and probably not a solution to count on.)

On the other hand, it's entirely possible when one does this kind of "Hey, can you help, please please please?" to the powers one works with, that they may go "Yes! On it!" (And that is true, it's just taking time for it to work through into reality and a manifestation you can see.)

So, I very much agree with the Jason Miller rec (if you want a place to start, I'd suggest his latest, The Elements of Spellcrafting unless the situation deals with something he's got a specific book out about in detail.) He strikes a really good balance between doing all the things you can, methods for encouraging help/probability/etc. but also being realistic about what can change, and how fast a change might come.

And, as a story: my last big magical working was job hunting 3 years ago, where I'd been hunting for about eighteen months before I got hired for the job I have now. The job I have now is a quite unique position: someone had to retire for there to be an opening.

(There are, of course, other jobs I would have liked and been good at in my field, and in my geographic area of choice, but even then, there's an element of 'job opening has to exist' and there's a dozen or two of those in a given month, not hundreds, in my large metro area. With all the related competition of lots of other well-qualified people who also want those jobs.)

And then the pressure got worse, because I was told they were cutting my job in six months.

So it took a while for all the magical stuff to work through, I had to do my part (keep improving my cover letter and resume, keep interviewing, even though I hit a bad surge of chronic medical stuff in the midst of it, because the only way out was through), and I kept talking to M'Lady and to other powers about what I wanted and needed and which bits mattered most.

Once things started lining up for my current job, things moved fast (I think it was only 2 weeks between applying and a phone interview, I did an in-person interview the next work day because of scheduling issues with other interviews, they called me the day after to offer the job).

I had a bunch of magical and practical work lined up for the "Okay, now I have to move 250 miles, find a new apartment, and set up a new life in three weeks. Go!" (Which thankfully, all did go as quickly as I needed, but I had back up plans.) But the second situation was a lot more amenable to rapid fixes (with some attention to 'what are workable options here', let me think outside the box') so it made sense it went faster.

My life experience is that there are relatively few big-deal problems where a solution has even a small potential of just appearing, falling in your lap, and making everything better very quickly. That's just not how big-deal problems work. Often there are a lot of moving pieces, or people who need to come to decisions in their own time, or different aspects that take time to line up. (And just as often, the big-deal problem is a big deal because things have been getting slowly worse for a while, so it also makes sense it'll take time to fix.)

It's definitely something that's been building up for a while. It all just came to a head (which is when I started working with my deities on this), and nothing has even slightly improved since then, so it's hard to see the positive omens while seeing no actual positive change. It's so hard to find hope.

You're right, though. There are a lot of moving parts in this, so it does make sense that it would take more time than I would like.

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